My Fake Christmas

December 23, 2001|By SONIA SHAH

There are 3 million followers of the Jain religion worldwide, and their idea of a good holiday is to fast for a month. So it is probably not surprising that as the Jain daughter of Indian immigrants growing up in suburban Connecticut, I yearned terribly for a ``real'' Christmas.

Unfortunately, I didn't really know what that was, except for what I could glean from ``A Charlie Brown Christmas,'' the annual Peanuts special, and ``Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,'' programs that I zealously scrutinized for clues. My goal was to mimic the rites and thereby procure that sentimental, cozy, gift-wrapped feeling I knew all the other kids at school enjoyed, indulgently and unselfconsciously.

Jainism is an ascetic religion, noble and somewhat cheerless, whose followers adhere to a monkish regimen of nonviolence and nonmaterialism. My parents didn't stand for us kids yearning to be something we were not -- no blond Barbie dolls for us, thank you very much -- but they must have felt bad for us at Christmastime. My mother took it upon herself to provide the requisite seasonal American emotionality to her daughters' lives in much the same way she set about feeding us muscle-building cow's meat, an item that she and my father, as vegetarians, never touched.

The truth is that we were all a bit short on details about Christmas. As the eldest daughter and the anointed emissary of all things American, I was generally called upon to be the expert on inscrutable American traditions.

The rudiments were clear enough, so I set forth certain commands. Thus upon request, my parents would obediently buy a tree and install it in the living room. Their job taken care of, they'd leave me to decorate the thing. We never had anything much by way of appropriate ornamentation. One year, I decorated the whole tree with little white bows, which I convinced myself was elegant. But deep down, I knew I was a fraud. Weren't you supposed to have stuff that had special emotional significance? How did you get that stuff? Who knew?

My parents, who had banned television, would rent us a TV so we could watch all the Christmas specials. The sweetness of that gesture, however, was undermined when we found out, years later, that the rental had been a ruse. They simply pulled their old TV out of deep storage every year at the appointed time and then put it back.

But the highlight of the holiday was the exchange of heartfelt gifts. This couldn't have been a more foreign idea to my parents. My father to this day doesn't know when his real birthday is, and never in their lives had he or my mother celebrated a birthday, let alone exchanged gifts. In keeping with the Jain tradition, they didn't accept presents even on their wedding day, a hot, sunny Dec. 25 in Bombay. Still, for the sake of us kids, they relented at Christmas.

A couple of weeks into December, my mother would dutifully listen to our litany of presents we had to have. She'd nod her head, broom in hand, the same way she'd listen to us explain how we didn't really need to brush our teeth. As the years went by, the procedure became increasingly nerve-racking -- we were like starving customers panting out our needs to a nonchalant waiter who refused to write anything down. Starvation appeared possible.

Not surprisingly, come Christmas morning, I'd unwrap Elton John's ``Greatest Hits'' instead of the desired ``Glass Houses'' by Billy Joel, and my poorly disguised disappointment would send my mother into tears. Afterward, when everyone had calmed down, in a slightly confused transliteration of Thanksgiving Day touch-football games, we'd go outside and play volleyball in the snow.

This went on for years, with increasing futility. Finally, I started spending Christmas with my in-laws, my sister spent hers with friends in New York, and my parents were able to dispense with the whole charade, to their great relief.

For the past 10 years or so, my parents have spent the month of December traveling. The complete disavowal of our Christmas-celebrating days came a few years ago when they announced, gleefully, that they'd no longer accept or give any gifts for any occasion. My sister and I, as adults, can laugh about our childhood exertions in search of Christmas fun. We don't care so much anymore.

Or so we say.

Nowadays, my Episcopalian Scot mother-in-law will call me in November, eager to discuss stocking stuffers, gingerbread houses and all the gifts and treats my small boys will enjoy this Christmas at her house, where the holiday is observed in full regalia, no holds barred. I nod and listen, tell myself I go along for my kids' sake, that I prefer being an authentic outsider on this one rather than a fake insider.